


Late Night Accomplices

by Pigzxo



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/F, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-24
Updated: 2016-03-24
Packaged: 2018-05-28 16:58:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6337531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pigzxo/pseuds/Pigzxo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Isabelle on a mission: Kill her cheating ex. That is, she's on a mission until she runs into Lydia, the girl who lives in the dorm room next to hers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Late Night Accomplices

Isabelle slung a knife set and a box of trash bags onto the conveyor belt. The late night hum of the grocery store was interrupted only by the lazy beeps as items ran past the cashier. The man in front of her was buying enough food to feed a family of six for a month, at midnight no less. Isabelle stared holes in the back of his head, more than a little offended that he didn’t offer to let her go ahead of him with her two items.

            “Seriously?” a voice said.

            Isabelle glanced over her shoulder, expected a sympathetic someone to lament over the rudeness of the man with. Instead she was graced with the face of the girl who lived in the room next to her: Lydia Branwell. “What?” Isabelle said.

            “Add a box of cereal or something,” Lydia said. “That stuff makes you look guilty as fuck.”

            Isabelle glared at her, flipped long black hair over one shoulder. “And what would you know?”

            “About not freaking out cashiers?”

            “About murder.”

            Lydia didn’t even flinch. She blinked, sure, but with the same measured calm with which she did everything. It was midnight and she was still dressed in her patented dark skinny jeans, brown ankle boots, and a blazer-like jacket over a black t-shirt. Her lips were lipstick-less for once, not magenta as usual but a pale pinched pink. “For starters,” she said, “don’t say the word ‘murder’ so loud. And add cereal.”

            Daggers left Isabelle’s eyes, then she glanced over her shoulder at the grocery-clad man. With a huff, she grabbed her two items and headed back into the store. Lydia followed at her heels, turned almost silently to back her up in the cereal aisle.

            “Who are you planning to kill anyways?” Lydia asked.

            “You don’t want to incriminate yourself, do you?” Isabelle kept her eyes trained on the colourful boxes in front of her. Red and yellow blurred and she wondered why she didn’t just grab one and walk back. Her heels had long since made her tired feet numb and while she had long ago perfected not being cold in a midriff, late-night grocery stores had a more artificial cold than New York autumns.

            Lydia shrugged, her blonde ponytail infuriatingly still on her shoulder. “I’m already an accomplice.”

            Running her tongue along her teeth, Isabelle snatched a box of Fruit Loops. “If you must know,” she said, already turning, heels sharp on the tile floors, “it’s Meliorn.”

            “Cheated on you?”

            “Yes.” She slammed her purchases back onto the conveyor belt and crossed her arms tight against her chest. Her heart pounded uncomfortably fast between her collarbones as she tried not to remember the exact conversation with Meliorn.

            “Hard to imagine that you can’t keep a man.”

            “Some men want substance.” Isabelle handed a credit card to the cashier, kept her eyes trained on the wall just past him. In her peripheral vision, she could see Lydia watch her profile, still.

            “You have substance.”

            “You don’t know me.” She took the plastic bag that was offered and stalked from the store.

            Lydia was at her heels, whatever she had come to buy forgotten. Isabelle seemed to remember a couple of trashy magazines and a bottle of NyQuil with the girl originally, but she must of dropped them when they went to get cereal. “Don’t know you?” she said. “You live next to me. We take half of our classes together. I hear you having sex _through the wall._ ”

            Isabelle cracked a smile. “That’s about all I’m good at.”

            “I don’t believe it.”

            Isabelle whipped on her. The cold night was more comfortable than the grocery store even as the breeze flickered strands of hair into her eyes. Lydia stood just an inch under her, the hidden heels in her boots affording her almost the height of Isabelle’s heels. She took a step closer to Lydia and the smaller girl raised her chin, wide eyes sparked. “You don’t know me,” she repeated. “You wanna a chance to make those screams yourself? Take a swing. But don’t pretend you follow me for my own good.”

            Finally a flinch. Lydia blinked, not in control, and took a step back, desperate to put distance between them. A flash of hurt shot through Isabelle, but she swallowed it. This girl, her neighbour, had been nothing but a passive aggressive bitch since they’d met. She beat her by single percentages in all their classes, ran half a second faster in track meets, shot arrows with a precision not even Isabelle’s brother could match. She had no right to be nice to her now, after Meliorn had cheated on her. Not after Lydia had taken one look at him the first week into classes and said he was no good.

            “You’re smart,” Lydia said, voice quiet. She regained her composure, squared her shoulders, and met Isabelle’s eyes again. Something had broken in her, gotten under her skin enough that she sounded sincere. “You push me to do better at everything, because I can’t beat you if I don’t. And just to stay ahead I have to abandon all social life, but you... you’ve got guys in your room 24/7 and scream through the walls and go out to party on weekends and are still barely behind me. So don’t tell me you don’t have substance.”

            Isabelle scanned her expression for signs of a lie. “Didn’t you have NyQuil to buy?”

            Lydia shrugged. “Should probably stop using it to get to sleep.”

            With a sly smile, Isabelle said, “That what the screaming’s good for.”

            Half a laugh scoffed out, Lydia shook her head. Isabelle took her arm and pulled her back to the bus stop. They sat down on the cold metal bench, huddled a little close together, but it was _cold._ “Did you get dressed up to come out here?” Isabelle said.

            “I could ask you the same thing,” Lydia said. She sighed. “No. I’m still studying for the econ final.”

            “One-twenty or one-forty-seven?”

            “Twenty.”

            “I have snacks,” Isabelle said. She offered Lydia her best smile without teeth, bumped her shoulder lightly. “Wanna pull an all-nighter? I’ll help you with the macro stuff if you can get me up to speed on the micro.”

            Lydia smiled back. “Thought you had a murder to commit?”

            “It can wait a night.”

            Lydia shook her head, laughing. Then she stood quick, stepped into the light of the streetlamp to catch the bus’ attention. The two girls got on, sat down, and took the ride in silence. The bus rattled around them, empty save two drunk guys in the back and a sleeping middle-aged woman up by the driver. Lydia pulled the cord when they got to the school and the two girls jumped off.

            Slowly, they made their way back to the dorms. Isabelle yawned wide as she turned to her door.

            “We don’t have to,” Lydia said, “if you’re tired.”

            Isabelle met her eyes. “No. I want to.”

            “My insomnia shouldn’t keep everyone up.”

            Isabelle rolled her eyes. “Bring your textbook, your notes, and whatever alcohol you’ve got.”

            “You’re not allowed to keep alcohol in your room.”

            For a moment, Isabelle just stared at her. Then, “Oh, you’re serious. Just your books then.” She stepped into her room, closed the door, and took a deep breath. Her room was a small disaster of discarded clothing, open textbooks, and scattered notes. Econ 120 was on her bed, laid at the foot of it. Everything else was, well, a work in progress.

            Lydia’s knock came soon after and Isabelle jumped. She opened the door and let Lydia in, tried not to flinch at her horrified look. “Umm,” Lydia said.

            “The lounge?”

            “No,” Lydia said. “It’s fine.” She cleared off a spot on Isabelle’s desk and sat down, took a deep breath. She had shed the blazer, traded the jeans for a pair of tight track pants. Her ponytail had been twisted up into a bun, her bare shoulders exposed, red and purple from boxing bruises. “Micro or macro first?”

            Isabelle lay down on her stomach, flipped through her notes. “I’ll be more helpful now than later.”

            “But you have lower grades,” Lydia said. Isabelle grabbed a pretzel from her abandoned dish of them and chucked it at Lydia’s head. It was likely a couple days old, out in the open since the last time she’d looked at the top of her mini fridge, but Lydia barely flinched. She glanced back over her shoulder with a playful smile, lips biteable pink, and said, “Sorry.”

            “Liar.”

            “Teach me macro,” she said. She turned around in the chair, hiked her legs up into a cross-legged position. Notebook balanced on her lap, pen cap in her mouth, she raised an eyebrow in the perfect picture of question. For a second, Isabelle forgot she didn’t like her.

            The night went by in a blur. Thirty minutes in, Lydia got up from the desk and shoved Isabelle over. Their hips bumped on the bed, feet against legs with every movement, arms cramped into t-rex claws. Their elbows hooked when they went to underline words on the others’ notes and eventually Lydia went to get coffee, came back and nudged Isabelle awake. Hysterical tired laughter and caffeine kept them up for hours, brought them to morning.

            Isabelle was in the middle of laughing at nothing in particular –maybe a bad pun about decimals– when Lydia said, “Shit.”

            “What?”

            “I’m late.” Lydia jumped off the bed and pulled her hair out of its bun. Long blonde hair fell over her shoulders in plaits, sectioned perfectly. She sniffed herself conservatively, cursed when she saw her outfit. “I can’t... God, I gotta move.”

            “Wear something of mine,” Isabelle said. She got to her feet and dug in her closet for the most fabric she could find. She settled on a plain black t-shirt and a pair of old jeans. She had bigger hips than Lydia, but with a belt—

            “I still have to go to my room to change—”

            “Change here,” Isabelle said. She grabbed a belt from the hook inside the closet and turned to see Lydia pulling down her pants. She really hadn’t expected the other girl to comply so quickly. She definitely didn’t expect toned thighs and thin calves, pockmarked with dark freckles and the occasional scrape. Then Lydia pulled off her tank top, one swift motion, and revealed a bright red bra with little lace edges. Their eyes met.

            Lydia turned pink almost immediately, her lips open around words she couldn’t find. Isabelle couldn’t stop staring, try as she might. Finally, Lydia said, “The clothes?”

            Isabelle shoved them at her quickly, turned to the wall with her hands to her cheeks. There was a shuffle as Lydia put the clothes on and a grunt when she pulled the belt tight. Still Isabelle didn’t turn around.

            “Izzy—”

            “See you tomorrow?” Isabelle turned around too quick, smile too bright, and failed to meet Lydia’s eyes. Maybe the issue was that the shirt she’d thrown was a little too big, dipped low on Lydia’s flat chest. It framed her sharp collarbone nicely, made her shoulders look strong, broad. The dip between her breasts was evident. With a sharp breath, Isabelle met Lydia’s eyes and forced her smile to turn it down a notch or two. “Or in Econ, I guess.”

            “Right,” Lydia said. For someone who had been in a rush to get out the door, she now seemed oddly rooted to the spot. Her eyes flickered to the blue door, to the clock, then back to Isabelle. “Izzy—”

            “Yeah?”

            “Are you going to kill Meliorn when I’m gone?”

            Isabelle blinked. She’d all but forgotten the man existed, let alone had cheated on her. In the corner of her room, a plastic bag with the knives and trash bags sat. It’d be a shame to let them go to waste. She shrugged. “Probably not.”

            “You know,” Lydia said, then paused. She looked at the clock again.

            “You should go.”

            Lydia stepped towards the door, hesitated with her hand on the knob. “He shouldn’t have done that. I don’t care what his reason was... if he made you feel like shit, you should kill him. I’ll help.”

            Isabelle laughed. “It was more of a perverted fantasy.”

            “If it becomes more, you know where I live.” She opened the door.

            “Wait,” Isabelle said. And maybe it was a bad idea, but she was already moving. She cupped Lydia’s face in her hands and kissed her once, a light peck. She pulled back with a smile, waited the three seconds it took for Lydia’s eyes to open, wide and clear, suddenly far from their usual tired. “Thanks.” Then she stepped away.

            Slowly, Lydia managed to nod and then step out into the hall.

            Isabelle counted to ten. Then she fell back onto her bed with a squeal.


End file.
